You rarely come across them as vital and as active as centenarian Wim van Vollenhoven. He does his errands by bicycle. And he also likes to go bargain hunting through supermarkets, because why pay more when you can get it for less? The born and bred Amsterdammer is busy with apples, pecan nuts and a blender upon entering the kitchen. A cooking class for men he took after the loss of his wife has generated little enthusiasm, so a ready meal goes into the microwave every night. He eats salt-free, because he is careful with his heart and blood vessels. He has dedicated carers to his 69-year-old daughter and her partner.
Van Vollenhoven gets up every day at half past six and crawls back into bed at nine o’clock sharp in the evening. He needs that sleep, he says, because a full program awaits him every day. ‘Deep in my heart I would like to go to England for six months to learn the language well.’
What is your greatest talent?
‘That I can easily make contact with everyone. All my life I have met many people, in my work as a trader from the age of 18 and later as a representative of O’Harris, a firm of draftsman supplies. I still easily strike up a conversation with anyone who crosses my path. Like during my bike rides through the polder that I like to make. Then I sit next to someone on a bench on the way and start a conversation. Not long ago I met a violinist, a girl of 90 years. Last week I invited her and we made music together, she on her violin, I on the piano.
‘Sometimes you experience the most wonderful things. Years ago, for example, my wife and I befriended a customs officer on holiday in Morocco after a chat. He has been with us in the Netherlands and we have been to his home in Morocco. He asked my wife to put on a traditional dress for dinner. She was also given a wide, richly decorated belt of pure gold. The customs officer turned out to be related to the king.’
What did you, as a father, want to pass on to your daughter?
‘That it is important to get a decent education, so that you can build a good life. But I never told her what to do. She chose to study medicine and became a company doctor. When I was young I would have liked to study. After two years of secondary education, my parents forced me to leave school to go to work. I was 14 years old. Money was needed. If I had been young during this time, I would have studied international trade. But I must say that I have always enjoyed my work. I have laughed many tears.’
You walk through the house humming
‘Yes, I always have music in my head. I play the piano a lot and write music notations of the songs I play myself. Playing the piano is the common thread in my life, from Chopin to Amsterdam folk songs. My parents were not well off, but I did have piano lessons from the age of 7. As a child I loved to listen to The Bonte Tuesday evening train† Fifty years later, I had just retired, an advertisement by Gerard Walden, one of the artists in this radio program, caught my eye. He and his wife Berry Kievits were looking for a pianist for their revue evenings. We have performed together for 7 to 8 years, in theaters throughout the Netherlands. After that I had a lot of fun and successes with Carolien Schellekens, a singer with whom I started a relationship in 2000 and performed in theaters and care centers.
‘After her death in 2016 I continued alone. It is a pity that corona has put a line through my piano performances in care centers in Amsterdam. I called last week. I thought: the signal is safe again, but it was a firm ‘no’, nothing is allowed in nursing homes yet.’
Which period in your life has had the most impact?
(First lost in thought for a moment:) ‘We have all been through the war, that was wrong. I had to adapt to the circumstances.’
What do you mean?
‘I was imprisoned for almost five years, in camps in Latvia and later in Russia. There I had to deal with figures who took pleasure in taunting others. All these years I had to do hard work, in an iron depot and later in the port of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg, red.) I had to carry heavy packs of sheepskins and wood from Finnish ships for 12 hours a day. Everything by hand. When the Russians liberated Latvia from the Germans, I lay with scabies in a hospital in Libau (now Liepaja, red.), between wounded German soldiers. In the chaos that ensued, I was put on a train with German prisoners of war.
‘Domoy – home – shouted the Russians. But we saw from the position of the sun that we were heading east. Arriving in Leningrad, women were hanging from the windows, gesturing that we should be hanged. The Germans had starved the inhabitants. I approached a Russian general and said that there was a mistake because I was not a German, but a Dutchman who had been put to work as a forced laborer by the Nazis, and that I wanted to go home. But the general said he couldn’t do anything for me. And so I was put to work again, this time among German prisoners of war. The Russians took everything I had from me, even my shoes and my socks. I walked barefoot through the snow.
‘It was only two years after the liberation, in the spring of 1947, that I returned to the Netherlands after a long journey. When I stood at the door of my house, the first thing my mother said was, “What do you look like!” I was in rags, very emaciated, and I looked like a bum. I washed myself extensively and then put on a neat suit. Then you immediately feel like a completely different person.’
How did you get through this time?
‘I had a really bad time in those years. It’s a miracle I survived. The worst thing that can happen to a person is that someone else decides how you should live. But what no one can take from you is your thoughts. I was able to survive by adapting to the situation, without complicated thinking patterns. You have no choice but to be in the moment.
‘When you returned, you were regarded as an ass, if you had worked as a forced laborer for the Germans. I didn’t need compassion, I was already happy to be home and to go about my business again, to lead a normal life; get married and start a family, nothing special.
My back is the biggest loser. Because of all the hard work it has become overloaded, I still have pain every day. Then you can say: good, that is in the past, but you carry these experiences with you for a lifetime. I don’t talk much about it anymore, because most people downplay that period. Recently I told a 48-year-old man about my war years and then he said: ‘It’s a shame I didn’t experience those times, so exciting.’
How did you pick up the thread again in 1947?
‘My father had died in the war, my mother had not a cent. So despite my bad condition I went straight to work. I went to factories and found metal bars among the waste. You can make shoehorns out of that, I thought, and I started selling them. A company in the north had a complete bedroom furnishings, which I was able to resell in Zeeland, which had been badly damaged from the war. This is how my trade, which I had started when I was 18 under the name ‘Industrie- en Handelsonderneming Van Vollenhoven’, got going again.’
What is your attitude to life?
‘What I do must be in accordance with my mind and my feeling, if one of the two says ‘no’, I don’t do it. I would never even think of judging. If a person expresses extreme views, silence is best, for he can only change his mind of his own accord.
‘Now, at the age of 100, my rationale is: I have a portion to live and I have eaten most of it. What’s left I have to spend as best I can. I do this by being busy all day: playing the piano, making recordings, writing music notations, going to the library to find new songs, going on bike rides, taking pictures and editing my photos on the computer, doing puzzles, drawing, being among people and de Volkskrant read. I’m always thinking of something to look forward to.’
I don’t have to ask you if you can keep up with digitization…
‘The world is constantly evolving. You have to move with the times as much as possible, otherwise you stand still and you can no longer keep up with the others. A computer and a smartphone are logical, if you look into them. There are plenty of instruction books. If I can’t figure it out, I consult seniorweb. Look, I bought something new for 2.95 euros: a selfie stick on a stand with bluetooth. I’m going to take detailed pictures with this. Boys my age don’t like what I do anymore.’
Wim van Vollenhoven
born: July 14, 1921
profession: representative and pianist
family: a daughter, two grandchildren, two great-grandchildren
widower: since 1999